Ryan Gajda

My work plays heavily on the human search for existential meaning but, despite the prevalence of this theme, I am painfully aware that this preoccupation becomes absurd when looked at in the context of the day-to-day. You can question your existence all you want, but that won’t pay the vet-bills when the cat needs to be spayed. When you’re walking home from the pub and see a drunk, swaying gently and staring into the twinkling canopy above, you cannot deny the beauty and sense of awe he feels shining down on him from the stars. For one moment – maybe – he feels like he’s found meaning. But the more pressing concern for you is the steaming dark urine that slowly radiates outward from his crotch. In light of this, I can do nothing but approach these questions, the existential conundrum, from a comic standpoint.

I have used a variety of techniques (both traditional and modern) to create an interlocking set of fictional worlds that exist according to an ill-defined hierarchy. I want to suggest that maybe this expanding set of parentheses goes beyond us, that the top level is beyond our understanding. And that any proclamations to the contrary should be met with the gently amused contempt they deserve.